


Holiday Feeling Now

by vextant



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 15:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17246789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: Sam decides to bring a fake date to the Wilson Family Christmas.But then a second one shows up.





	Holiday Feeling Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewolfthatwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolfthatwrites/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year! This is my Secret Santa fic for thewolfthatwrites, who I'm going to thank for their patience while I wrestled with various Real Life things these last few weeks. I know no one wants their gift on the last day. :)
> 
> I've never written holiday fluff or a fake dating fic before, I hope you like it!
> 
> A note: I'm not POC and don't claim to be. My intent in writing this fic is to represent all characters of color with respect, but I recognize that my own experience is limited in that way. I completely understand if you click that back button because of this. 
> 
> If at any point you feel parts of the fic are ignorant or derisive, please let me know. I'm always trying to do better. 
> 
> Thanks :)

From the moment he and Steve walk in, Sam knows that his Aunt Dorothy’s taken over one of the ovens. The smell of pecan pie reaches all the way to the front doorway — it’s heavy and thick and sweet, butter and sugar and vanilla wafting out into the cold December night behind them.

Suddenly, Sam is trapped. In front of him is his mom, all five foot five of her, still managing to look down at him over the thick rim of her glasses somehow, and behind him is Steve the six foot two muscle wall — they’re both technically the same height, Steve and him, but right now it’s very much a rock and hard place situation. Can’t go back without seeming like a coward, can’t go forward without any interrogation.

“You told me you were bringing a  _ friend _ ,” Darlene Wilson says, complete with air quotes. She’s not accusatory in the sense that she didn’t already know about his “proclivities”, as she calls them — she and Dad have never been anything but supportive of him — but she is clearly offended at not knowing the nature of this particular “friend”. 

Which is funny, considering that yesterday Sam and Steve were just coworkers. Steve’ got his hand on the small of Sam’s back to help sell the ruse.

About a week ago, Sam had been getting desperate. He never thought he’d be the kind of guy to consider faking a boyfriend for Christmas, but here he is. The flashbacks to last year got longer and stronger once Thanksgiving came and gone, and Sam was not about to suffer through six hours of ribbing from his family over Christmas dinner — there are so many good gays out there Samuel, men can even be bisexual now, I’ve heard. 

The Wilsons aren’t cruel. They mean well, even when they’re not quite sure how to talk about “the gays”, of which Sam is one. It took awhile for the Wilsons to even wrap their heads around the concept, and honestly, not a day goes by where he’s not grateful they’re as accepting as they are. He’s the first one in his family to be queer or to come out at all (and while he has his own suspicions about his niece Katherine, he’s not about to pressure a teenager into taking a leap she may not understand or be ready for).

Steve was playing his part well from the moment they got out of the car. He offered to carry the tray of cookies — chocolate with white chocolate chips, Sam made them himself this morning since no store-bought food is allowed in his parents’ house on Christmas — and he hasn’t strayed more than a couple inches from Sam’s side.

“I”m Steve,” he offers his free hand to shake Darlene Wilson’s with that charmer-white-boy smile, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And a polite one, to boot.” Sam watches his mom get won over almost instantly. He hopes none of his relief is showing on his face. “Go on, take your shoes off, don’t track anything over my nice clean floor.”

Sam owes Steve  _ so many _ drinks for this. 

“Sam’s brought a tall drink of water with him,” Mom announces by way of introduction once they get to the living room. “Steve, this is my husband Paul, Sam’s sister Sarah and her husband Benny, their kids Katherine and Jody, that’s him, that little boy over there. Sam’s brother Gideon, his wife Rachel, and their son Jim. My sister Dorothy’s in the kitchen, that’s her husband Howie in the armchair there.”

Sam nods to everybody, watches Steve mouth names to himself as Mom points around the room. Sarah offers to take their coats. Dad relieves them of the cookies, and Aunt Dorothy darts out of the kitchen just long enough to say hi to Steve and snatch the cookie tray to squirrel it away with wherever the rest of the desserts are hidden.

There’s more than enough space for them all to sit, but Steve is pulled into sitting between Jody and Jim on the big couch and Sam is relegated to a kitchen chair that’s been pulled next to the fireplace. He flashes Steve an apologetic smile — but Steve’s not even paying attention, he’s too busy flexing through his button-up because Jody, who is six, is excitedly asking him how big his muscles are. Jim’s pretending not to be interested, because he’s in that age where nothing is cool unless he’s the one who brings it up first. Sam chuckles to himself before Uncle Howie asks him if he’s seen the game last night.

The conversation is easy, and Sam is incredibly grateful that Steve’s naturally such a people person. They don’t even have to act like a couple for Steve to sneak secret smile at him, or weave fake anecdotes into the conversation. He’s telling the kids about how Sam once found a dog on the side of the road and spent the next two hours trying to find a local shelter to take her in. 

“That’s not how it happened,” Sam says playfully. It’s true, because in reality it was  _ Steve _ who went to the ends of the Earth for Lottie, who’s now the official mascot of the gym where they both work (when she’s not living with Steve, of course). Sam was just the poor soul who was Steve’s ride to work that day. It took him ages to get all the hair out of the car. 

It’s easily to slip into the lie, to pretend that he and Steve are really  _ dating _ and that he’s not deceiving his family into thinking that he has any game at all. But Steve is tragically straight — he’s a good friend though, which is why he’s here, which is why they agreed not to kiss or anything unless they’re asked (or more likely, pressured) into doing so. When Sam met him, when he started working at the gym about two years ago, he’d been told Steve had just been dumped by the girl he’d thought he was going to marry. He’d been heartbroken. Steve is not the kind of person that wears his feelings on his sleeve — to the contrary, he tends to bury them down deep where nobody can find them, not even himself. But it was easy for Sam to see in the way Steve kept picking up shifts, kept coming in first and leaving last, kept refusing invitations to come out for a drink with the rest of them. 

Here in the warm living room — and it is warm, alive with heat from the fire and friendly conversation — it’s easy for Sam to pretend that what he has with Steve is real, that they’re happy together. But they’re not. They’re not together at all — Sam wasn’t about to manipulate a grieving man like that, especially when that man has only ever had straight relationships. Those are a lot of points not in his favor. 

He can’t say he’s heartbroken exactly, because that would mean they had something together in the first place. It’s more a kind of longing for something he knows he won’t have. Which is fine. Sam’s had time to deal with it. He’s just really dug himself an emotionally unhealthy hole with this fake relationship here, watching Steve make up fake stories about their fake time together.

Dad asks them how they met, and Steve, smooth as butter, says, “I think Sam tells that story better.”

It catches Sam off guard, along with the smile. He realizes a second too late that he’s supposed to smile back. Steve’s eyebrow quirks in a way that he might just recognize that something’s wrong — which it isn’t, Sam decides and steels himself that  _ nothing is wrong _ . He grins, “Well, we work together, you know. And somebody’s a little bit of a show-off with his five-and-a-half minute mile.”

Steve laughs. “I can’t help  _ your _ speed —  _ if _ that’s what you want to call that.”

“Oh, that’s how it is?”

“That’s  _ always _ how it is.”

The doorbell rings. It silences any and all conversation — Sam watches everybody in the room take inventory and realize that everyone’s already here.  _ He _ knows that he certainly doesn’t have anyone else coming. He looks at Steve, and Steve shrugs and shakes his head. Of course Steve wouldn’t invite anyone else, because he’s supposed to be Sam’s boyfriend today. 

Sam watches his mom walk past the living room to the front door, even though from where he’s sitting he can’t see or hear anything beside the Christmas bells hanging from the doorknob as she swings the door open.

After a beat, Mom calls, “ _ Samuel _ !”

The kids are snickering, because it’s rare that a grown-up gets called by his full first name. Steve looks confused — and frankly, so is Sam. He stands and makes his way to the front door— 

  
  
  


— where  _ Bucky Barnes _ is standing, chatting with Sam’s mother. 

Sam . . . doesn’t know what to think. He’s glued to the hallway floor where he’s standing. Does he go back, tell Mom to shut the door and lock him out? His mom hasn’t seen him yet — does he retreat back to the living room and pretend not to hear?

But then Barnes sees him, because of  _ course _ he does, and waves him over. “Had a heck of a time getting here. Am I okay with the bike right there?”

Mom glances around Barnes — which is hard to do with his brickhouse build — and nods. “Yeah, honey, you’re fine.”

“Awesome. Here, this is for you. I wasn’t sure if you had a preference, I got a white and a red. It might’ve gotten a little shaken up on the ride over.” Barnes offers two bottles of wine and Sam’s jaw actually drops open, like in the movies, because he knows what’s happened here. 

Bucky Barnes  _ lied _ to him. Well, not exactly. Sam knows as soon as he thinks is that “lie” is a strong word — what happened is more of a misunderstanding than anything. 

See, Sam and Bucky don’t get along. They  _ have _ to, because they work together and share a lot of friends, but they don’t exactly seek out each other’s company. It’s not even a cold relationship — it’s a non-relationship.  _ But _ , the thing  _ is _ , is that Sam and Bucky are the only queer men at work, so Sam had swallowed a lot of his pride in asking Barnes to pretend to be his date to Christmas dinner to meet his family. 

Barnes had laughed in his face, which Sam thought was safe to take as a no. But  _ apparently _ in Barnes’ backwards-wired, meathead brain, that was a resounding yes - because he’s here now, in Sam’s parent’s house, on Christmas Day, with two bottles of wine in his hands. 

“Oh, honey, you didn’t have to do this.” Mom says, but takes them both anyway. Barnes seems to have sprung for middle-shelf, even.

“It seemed like an appropriate apology for being late.”

“For being  _ late _ ,” Sam repeats, confounded, because  _ he wasn’t supposed to have come at all _ . 

“Sent you a text, “ Barnes says, shutting the door behind him and shrugging his coat off, “I wasn’t sure if you’d be checking it, but I didn’t want you to think I was standing you up, sunshine.”

Sam’s eyes narrow, because Bucky is clearly  _ loving _ this. 

“Well, Samuel, I guess I’ll forgive you for not telling me about an extra guest if he’s this sweet. We’ve got enough food for a battalion anyway. How do you two know each other?” Mom says. 

Bucky doesn’t even give Sam a chance to defend himself. “Well, we’ve been working together a while, we talked, and you know, things happen. It was touch and go there for a while.”

“But you’re all good now? Even with . . . with Steve?” Mom asks. She’s surprisingly calm for finding out her gay son’s supposedly been two-timing two different big white boys. 

Sam wasn’t sure what to do with himself with one fake boyfriend, what is he supposed to do with  _ two _ ?

“Oh, is Steve already here? Awesome. Yeah, Mrs. Wilson, we’re golden. Don’t worry about us, we’re taking good care of your Sammy-boy.”

Then Bucky winks, right at Sam. He knows that words are coming out of Barnes’ mouth, but he doesn’t have the actual brainpower to process them. There’s a lot to unpack there, and he’s not sure he’s willing to go through that. 

“I’m sure you are.” Mom chuckles, absolutely charmed. “Let me take your coat, Sam, show your boy the living room, introduce everybody.”

He absolutely does  _ not _ want to do that. But he doesn’t have a choice. 

“Come on,” he grunts. 

As soon as Mom has stepped out to hang up Barnes’ coat, Bucky takes him by the elbow and leans close to his ear. “How far have you and Steve gone with this?”

No apology, no nothing. It’s Christmas, and Sam’s pretty sure it’s a sin to be angry on Christmas, so he tries to keep the bite out of his tone. “Steve said we’ve been together six months, then you showed up.”

“Cool, why don’t you—” Barnes tries to say more, but they’ve made it to the living room. Everyone is staring, including Steve, who looks mildly confused. “— why don’t you introduce me? Hey, everyone, I’m Bucky. Steve’s roommate.”

_ Steve’s roommate _ . That’s what they’re going with. Even though Mom clearly thinks — God, this is such a mess. Sam should just quit while he’s ahead and resign himself to being a hermit for the rest of his livelong days. 

“Wait, hold on, Sam,” Steve says, “I want to see if I’ve got everybody’s names.”

Sam watches Steve stand and points around the room, getting everybody’s name right. Jody’s got stars in his eyes when Steve gets to him. 

“You guys live in the same  _ house _ ?!” The kid says.

“It’s an apartment, but yeah,” Steve smiles. 

Barnes nods along next to Steve, “Sometimes Sam even comes over to hang out with us.”

“Sometimes.” Sam emphasizes. He’s got his arms crossed, and he’s using every method he’s ever learned to try to sound pleased with the Bucky Barnes development. Which, in all honesty, it is hard enough to just deal with the man himself. But now he’s got to play extra nice, because it’s Christmas and his whole goddamned family is here and there’s at least five more hours of this shit, because Aunt Dorothy’s not going to let anyone go before seven o’clock, she never does.

“Alright,” Dorothy calls from the kitchen, “Dinner’s ready. Kids first.”

“Anything that smells that good, I’m definitely a kid.” Steve jokes. Bucky chuckles and Sam forces himself to crack an easy smile. 

 

—

 

Dinner relieves a lot of the tension. Uncle Howie seems the most skeptical about the whole supposed Sam-and-Steve-and-Steve’s-roommate-Bucky situation, but Uncle Howie is skeptical about most things, and he keeps it to himself while Steve tries his darnedest to charm the socks off of Aunt Dorothy. It’s mostly working. 

Gideon’s pulled Bucky into conversation about “the game”, and while Sam knows for a fact that Barnes doesn’t follow any sports except hockey, he seems to be doing a good job keeping up. 

The food is definitely doing its part too. Mom always said that Aunt Dorothy could be a chef if she hadn’t fallen in love with computer programming — and that’s not a light compliment, because Mom  _ is _ a chef. There’s homemade honey-ham, two kinds of cornbread, potato salad straight from heaven, casserole, and green beans piled high with butter and salt and everything unhealthy but delicious. Sam can see the moment where Steve decides to turn off the nutritionist inside him.  

After dinner, Sam is surprised when both Steve and Bucky offer to help with the dishes. They’re turned down, of course, both because they’re guests here and because dishes are the kids’ job. 

Steve excuses himself once he drops his dishes in the assigned piles. Sam doesn’t pay much attention — he’s an adult, he can figure out where the bathroom is — so he’s surprised when he hears a soft, “Hey, Sam, can you come here a sec?” drift from the living room. 

He’s swallowing the last of his mashed potatoes as he rounds the corner to see Steve standing on the far end of the living room. Bucky is next to him, cell phone in hand. Steve’s near the door to the mud room, which is weird because no one ever goes in there except for laundry. 

And then Sam watches Steve glance above his head. 

Mistletoe.

Mom’s hung mistletoe above the door that no one ever uses, probably just as decoration, but Steve seems to be taking it pretty seriously. 

“There’s — nobody else is here, Steve.” Sam doesn’t know what else to say. He almost gives the game away, but at this point what does it matter? They don’t have an audience right now. Steve shouldn’t be doing this. 

“I know.” Steve says softly.

“Come on,” Bucky comes over to gently shove Sam in Steve’s direction, “Don’t you think Darlene would want a cute picture?”

Sam huffs and digs in his heels, because Barnes is right, but that doesn’t mean he should be calling his mom by her first name. 

“Just on the cheek.” Steve assures, grabbing Sam by the wrist and pulling him so they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to embarass you.”

“Fine. Send it to me for my mom, and then delete it right away, you got it Barnes?”

“You got it.” Bucky nods and swipes at his phone to get to the camera. He’s standing a bit too close — this picture is going to turn out horrible. “Close your eyes so the flash doesn’t blind you. On three, ready?”

Sam sighs and closes his eyes, puts on a smile because he knows how much his mom’s going to analyze this photo later. 

“One . . . two . . . . . . . . .—”

For a long moment, Sam thinks that the third count’s never going to come. The whole thing’s probably some kind of prank anyway, they must’ve set him up —

“— Three!” Barnes’ voice is suddenly much closer.

When Sam opens his eyes, a lot of things happen all at once. Barnes takes the picture, for one, but there’s no flash because it’s in selfie mode because Barnes is right next to him because  _ they’re both kissing him at the same time _ .

He’s pretty sure his brain shorts out a little. The shot is probably total crap. 

“Merry Christmas!” Steve says excitedly as he pulls away.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas,” Bucky echoes as he opens the image to take a look, “Aw, look at that, Steve, look at those pearly whites.”

“Yeah, Sam, your smile looks great, look at that.”

“Wh—what?” says Sam, because it’s all he can manage. He doesn’t even think about the picture.

“Well, we realized you were never going to make a move, so we had to,” Barnes chuckles like that makes anything any clearer.

“To be honest, we weren’t quite sure how to ask you.” Steve looks a little embarrassed, turning red at the tips of his ears. “But it all just kind of shook out this way, when we realized you’d asked both Buck and me to Christmas.”

Sam doesn’t even hear the second half of that. “Ask me what?”

“Ask you  _ out _ .” Barnes says slowly. “Oh, I guess we never actually asked.”

“Oh!” Steve takes Sam’s hands in his, and they’re still under the mistletoe and Sam’s still kind of dazed. “Sam, do you wanna go out with . . .well, us, I guess? Bucky n’ me?”

“Both of you?” manages Sam. 

“Yeah.”

“You’re—?”

“Yeah.” Bucky cuts back in, nodding. “Sorry for springing it on you, but we kinda felt like now or never, you know?”

“And you don’t have to answer now. It’s a lot to — process, I know. And I know you don’t like surprises, but we were just so happy when you asked both of us.”

Sam draws his eyebrows together and points at Bucky, “No, you — you laughed at me.”

“I laugh when I’m nervous.” Barnes shrugs. “I didn’t think you pegged me for interested.”

“And you are?” Sam says, surprised. “Interested?”

Barnes chuckles. “Thought that would be obvious. Especially after all this.”

“How about this?” Steve smiles. He still hasn’t let go of Sam’s hands. “How about we go back in there, eat some pie, and we can talk this out another time?”

“There’s a lot to talk out.” Sam says, but he smiles. He thinks he could be okay with this. Once he wraps his head around the fact that Steve is for one, obviously not straight, and two, in a relationship with Bucky Barnes and apparently has been for a while? Is Sam suddenly blind to the dynamics of his workplace?

“Well, you’ve got time.” Bucky’s tapping away on his phone. Sam secretly hopes he’s sending that picture to him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go charm that pecan pie recipe out of your Aunt Dorothy. That sh—  _ stuff _ smells like heaven.”

“Good luck, I don’t even think it’s written down.” Sam chuckles.

Just then, his sister pokes her head in the room — and Sam is so grateful she missed the previous, what could it have been, two minutes? “If you boys are done messing around, there’s dessert.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bucky says, already striding halfway across the room. 

Steve plants another one on Sam’s cheek. “Merry Christmas.” 

Suddenly Sam feels so warm inside that he can’t really help but grin. “Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Holiday Feeling".
> 
> All of Sam's family members are from 616 canon except for Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Howie, who I named after Dorothy Vaughan (the NASA programmer, played by Octavia Spencer in the movie _Hidden Figures_ ) and her husband. Sarah's husband and daughter, and Gideon's wife were never named as far as I know, so I gave them names. Katherine is named after Katherine Johnson, a computer at NASA also featured in _Hidden Figures_ and played by Taraji P. Henson (although as far as I know, the real Katherine Johnson was not gay, as I implied that Sam's niece might be).
> 
> Thanks for reading! :) Happy New Year to all!


End file.
